


Family Photos

by writingmermaid



Series: The Evolution of Reddie [5]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M, foster parents!Reddie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:09:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22095400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmermaid/pseuds/writingmermaid
Summary: 5 snapshots of the kids Richie and Eddie foster + 1 family portrait.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: The Evolution of Reddie [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1578217
Comments: 5
Kudos: 66





	1. Sophie Rose

The plan had been to wait until _after_ their wedding to become parents. They’d already registered as foster parents and had talked about Richie going on tour one last time before they settled down and started the adoption process (which would probably take years anyway). The plan _had_ been not to have kids for three to five years. 

It did not work out that way. A month before their wedding, Richie brought home a baby girl. 

Eddie was curled up in a chair in the living room, reading over the reports for the last month when he heard his husband scrambling into the house. 

“Eddie, Eddie, Eds! I may have done something _crazy._ ” Eddie cocked an eyebrow, looking at his husband. “Okay, what did you do now?” 

“I said we’d foster a baby.” 

“You did _what?”_

“Okay, so I know we don’t have anything for a baby, and it’s crazy because we’re getting married in a month and--”

“ _Richie,_ where's the baby?” 

Richie’s eyes widened as if he suddenly realized he wasn’t holding a baby. “The baby!” He scrambled back down the stairs out to the car. It was a few moments before he came back holding a car seat containing a small pink bundle. 

“This is Sophie Rose. The social worker called while I was working and asked if we could do an emergency placement, and we ended up with Sophie, and she’s so beautiful, and I love her already.” 

The baby girl was asleep, probably exhausted from Richie’s nervous energy or whatever circumstances had brought her to them. She had dark hair and, if Eddie had to guess, she’d have dark eyes. She was a petite baby, small with rosy lips, pink-tinted cheeks, and tan skin. 

Eddie loved Sophie from the first moment he held her. She was painfully light, nothing like the previous babies he’d held. Sophie stirred as he held her, crying out softly. Richie practically jumped out of his skin when she cried, looking alarmed with worry. 

“Relax, she’s probably hot.” It wasn’t a particularly chilly night, but Sophie had been bundled up like she was going out into the Minnesota winter. Eddie set to work stripping the baby down to her diaper, humming a soft tune as he did. Absorbed in his task, he hadn’t noticed that Richie had called Stan to bring over a portable crib until Stan was standing in his living room, looking over his shoulder at the baby. 

“She’s beautiful.” 

Eddie nodded solemnly. “She is. And she’s probably going to a better foster home soon, so we can’t get too attached.” Stan snorted as he opened the crib. “You think Richie doesn’t love her already? He’s Googling the best ways to put your baby to sleep.” 

Richie was, in fact, Googling the best way to put Sophie to sleep. She was awake now, sitting in her car seat and looking around at the unfamiliar surroundings. She looked tired and probably wouldn’t be too hard to put to sleep if she didn’t just fall asleep herself. The logical part of his brain knew that Sophie wasn’t theirs, that she would go to a foster home that knew how to take care of babies and then to an adoptive family. They would have this beautiful baby girl as their daughter, and they would get to raise her and love her and—,, and she wasn’t theirs. 

But _fuck_ , he wanted her to be. 

All the adoptive parent blogs talked about looking at a child and just _knowing_. He and Eddie hadn’t fostered any other children, and they’d been hoping to adopt an older child in a few years, but then their social worker had called, and Richie had rushed to meet her, and he’d looked at Sophie and just _known_ this was his baby girl. He’d seen the look on Eddie’s face, that look of falling in love when he’d held Sophie for the first time. G-d, it would hurt when someone took her away. 

Later, after Stan had left and Eddie had coaxed Richie into their bed, and away from the comfortably resting Sophie, Richie turned to his husband. 

“What if we didn’t wait?”


	2. Lola

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, Richie Kaspbrak-Tozier is a soft dad who will do anything for his (foster) kids

Lola came into their life at a...strange time. Richie was finishing up an hour of comedy and Eddie was in the middle of writing a program for families dealing with HIV/AIDS when Lola was dropped into their lap. She was…angry, that much was clear from the moment she stepped into their house and Eddie supposed she had reason to be angry, but she made loving her difficult. 

Richie was trying his hardest to make her feel safe and comfortable despite her protests that she didn’t want to live with “weird old men”. He’d gone out and bought hair supplies for her and had asked his manager’s wife how to do her hair. Eddie hadn’t had the heart to tell Richie that Lola was thirteen and probably knew how to handle her hair better than two gay men in their late thirties ever would. Lola had taken the hair supplies, put them in her bathroom, and said nothing more. 

* * *

The change came when, four months into her stay, Richie caught Lola sketching. Caught wasn’t quite the right word, but she had been hiding her talent. Eddie’d been making dinner, humming softly to himself while Lola was doing her homework at the kitchen table. It was mostly peaceful in the Kaspbrak-Tozier household these days. Lola had settled in and more or less accepted that she was staying with them for the time being, Richie had finished his comedy and was just routing his tour, and Eddie was waiting for the state health board to approve his program. They’d all settled into their respective roles and were happily going about life. 

Richie had wandered into the dining room and looked over Lola’s shoulder, just to see what she was working on (math). Richie thought she was pretty good at math but clearly didn’t like it, preferring to doodle.  So far, Lola had kept her drawings secret, refusing to show her foster fathers her art. Richie kept trying to sneak peeks at what she was drawing and she would catch him just in time, it was their little game. Truthfully, Eddie thought she liked the attention from her foster father. But today she was too focused on whatever she was drawing to notice or care so when Richie took a peek over her shoulder, Lola didn’t catch him. And her sketch was  _ good,  _ a little...violent, but good.

Richie motioned to Eddie to come over and look at her sketch. Lola was listening to music, not paying any attention to her fathers. Eddie snuck over and took a look. 

“Looks good, sweetie.” 

The compliment would’ve meant nothing to most kids, just their father offhandedly saying their art was good, but Eddie could tell it meant a lot to Lola. Her life hadn’t been...nice, from what her social worker had told them. She seemed to like living with them and to like them from what she had said. Both Eddie and Richie tried to encourage her and to do anything that would help her feel more comfortable in their home. It seemed to be working. 

Lola puffed up with pride, grinning. 

“You think so?” 

“I know so. Now clear all this off and set the table, dinner’s almost ready.” 

* * *

The second change occurred when Eddie had pulled an old medical textbook off his shelf to look something up quickly. He didn’t use these much anymore, just when he wasn’t sure of something or needed to check a symptom was what he thought it was. 

“Whoa, dad, that’s cool.” 

Lola had been watching tv, relaxing on her day off. She’d started calling them dad a few weeks ago (Richie had burst into happy tears the first time she’d called him dad) at dinner and hadn’t really stopped. Eddie suspected that it felt good for her to be able to call someone that. 

“Hm? The illustration? Those are the muscles in your leg, not what I’m looking for though…” Eddie flipped a few more pages, read what he needed to, and handed the book to Lola. 

“Flip through it, you seemed interested.” Lola nodded excitedly and went to look through the book. 

* * *

“Do people actually do that, draw pictures for medical books?” They were halfway through dinner when Lola asked. Richie gave his husband a confused look but decided to stay quiet for once in his life. Eddie nodded.

“Absolutely. I hear they get paid good money too, it’s an important job.” Lola’s face lit up at the idea. 

“I wanna do that.” 

Lola came home from school the following day to find a book about sketching anatomy and a brand new high end set of colored pencils resting on her bed, courtesy of her dad. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if you guys are liking this, if you have any thoughts, etc!


	3. Juan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ngl, this is a sad chapter ya'll. It took so long because when I was doing research I found something so depressing that I had to take a break.

Juan was a sweet boy who came to them from the hospital. He’d gotten into a fight with his previous family and had refused to tell anyone why. Eddie wasn’t going to force the issue during the boy's first weeks in their house, so he let Juan be. Richie was off on tour, but he called every night to speak with Eddie and Juan. 

A few things became clear in the first month that Juan was living in their house. One, he was enthralled with Staniel, Richie’s monitor. Eddie and Staniel had an uneasy peace. Staniel, for whatever reason, didn’t like Eddie and would refuse any food he gave him. Eddie didn’t like the fact that his husband kept a literal dragon in their house. 

Juan  _ loved  _ it. 

In all honesty, he took better care of Staniel than Richie or the people Richie hired to care for Staniel while he was on tour. Juan was diligent about misting, feeding, cleaning, making sure there was enough substrate for Staniel to burrow, anything the monitor could want or need.

Two, he was an amazing cook. 

When Richie was home, Eddie usually cooked. While Richie could cook, he did so in a way that stressed his husband out. He’d get distracted and leave pots and pans on the stove until the exact moment they were going to burn or boil over. And anyway, he was a much better baker.

So Eddie cooked. 

Until Juan surprised Eddie by making dinner before he got home. There’d been an emergency at work and he’d had to stay late and by the time Eddie got home, it was looking like pizza for dinner. Again. 

Instead, he found that Juan had cooked chicken and vegetable soup. From scratch. And it was  _ good.  _

“Where did you learn to cook, Juan?” 

Juan blushed. “My mom. When we lived in Guatemala, she would...work for some extra money to get some chicken and she taught me to cook even though we were basureros.” 

Eddie had an idea what Juan’s mother had done to get the money for that chicken, but he had no idea that Juan had lived in a garbage dump or that he was from Guatemala. Their social worker hadn’t said anything about it. Then again, Eddie wasn’t surprised. It was common for social workers not to disclose immigration status to foster parents. 

“Your mom did a nice job teaching you to cook.” Juan visibly relaxed when Eddie didn’t say anything about where he came from. Eddie finished his dinner, did the washing up. 

“Hey, let me know if you wanna cook again. That was really good.” Juan nodded, looking proud of himself. From then on, he cooked and seemed happier. By the time Richie came back from touring, the kitchen had been transformed into Juan’s. They quickly settled into a happy little routine. Eddie made breakfast every morning (Juan, typical ten year old, didn’t like mornings), Juan made dinner (and lunch on the weekends), Richie happily ate what his boys made. 

And then everything changed. 

Richie’s mom died. 

They both had to go to the funeral and they weren’t allowed to bring Juan across state lines since he was their foster child and they couldn’t give his social worker proper notice. By the time they came back, almost two weeks later, Juan had been placed in another house. 

Eddie hadn’t heard Richie cry like that in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> I have lots of plans for this!


End file.
